Kristian Williams - Our Enemies in Blue - Police and Power in America

point. The Panthers personified everything that White society most feared­Black people, armed and smart, militant, radical, and organized. In attacks onthe Panthers, the racist undertones of police actions often came to the surface. In1968, members of a New York police organization, the Law Enforcement Group,packed a courtroom where Panthers were being tried and beat Panther supporterswith blackjacks in the hallway outside.I641bey shouted slogans such as 'Winwith Wallace!" and ''White Power!"I!,sSINCE THE SIXTIESWhile it's uncommon these days to hear police chiefs publicly sounding like BullConnor, and while police departments have added increasing numbers ofminorities to their ranks, the use of the police to control people of color andguard White supremacy continues in a refined form. Race-based tactics remainin prominent use, racist ideology still exercises a strong pull on individual officers,and racist organizing within law enforcement has entered a new phase.Michael Novick of People Against Racist Terror lists more than fifty incidentsof police involvement in racist organizing between 1976 and 1994. His chronologyrepresents occurrences across the country and describes the involvement ofpolice, prison guards, and federal agents in building racist organizations, attacking minorities, and ignoring (or engaging in) Klan-style terrorism.1(x;To give just a brief sample, from Novick's list and elsewhere: In 1978, theKlan publicly revealed its penetration of police agencies in northern Mississippi. 167In 1980, the San Diego Police Department assigned a reserve officer to infiltratethe Klan. Through him, the department provided funding, equipment, and otherassistance to a petition drive to place noted White supremacist Tom Metzger onthe ballot for Congress.1G8 In Chicago's 1983 mayoral race, members of "Policefor Epton" sided with a White Republican against Black candidate HaroldWashington. Police decorated their uniforms with plain white buttons, or buttonswith a circle and slash around a picture of a watermelon. The media also uncovereda plot to target Black neighborhoods for mass arrests on the eve of theelection; the idea was subsequently abandoned.1G9A couple of years later, in 1985, Alex Young was fired from the JeffersonCounty, Kentucky, police force after passing data from police files to theKKK. Young had earlier founded the department's chapter of ConfederateOfficers Patriot Squad (COPS) . 170 In 1988, former Youngstown, Pennsylvania,police chief David Gardner was indicted for providing armed guards to protecta counterfeiting operation run by the White supremacist group PosseComitatus. 171 Two White IAPD homicide detectives were reprimanded in1989 for displaying the flag of apartheid South Africa on their squad car. InAround the same time, two Black cops complained that Nazi and Klan literaturewas being circulated in the stationhouses. Soon thereafter, one ofthe whistle-blowers, Donald Jackson, was attacked by White Long Beachofficers. They threw him through a plate-glass window. 173In June 1991, Indianapolis police officer Wayne Sharpe shot and killed EdmundPowell, a Black man suspected of shoplifting. Sharpe claimed Powell attackedhim with a nail-studded board, but witnesses said that Powell was lying on theground when Sharpe shot him. It was soon learned that Sharpe had killed a101